? Path Core The Pathology Core will provide services to this proposal essential to the success of the projects. The Core will leverage existing technologies and infrastructure in Uganda and Tanzania as well as CWRU to provide reliable diagnoses of prospective project enrollees. The Pathology Core facilities include state of the art slide scanners which have been installed at the two African Pathology coordinating centers. The scanners are part of a large multi-institutional continent-wide program organized by the American Pathology of Clinical Pathology to improve surgical pathology diagnostic standards in Africa through a program of targeted infrastructure development. This program has enabled both teaching for faculty and residents in pathology diagnostics as well as facilitating pathology consultations across the globe. The slide scanning system and software are robust and user friendly. The program has been extremely successful and has been extensively implemented ? linking multiple pathology departments in Africa to departments throughout the US and Europe. The design of the Core will facilitate rapid turnaround of pathology diagnoses through consensus. The two African center Pathology Leaders have extensive experience in the presentation of a host of non-cancerous lesions of the lung. This experience compliments that of Dr Willis, the Pathology Core Leader at CWRU, with his extensive experience in diagnostic oncology. The CWRU Pathology Core Center also has extensive experience in digital slide imaging management and translational research having extensive engagement with the CWRU Center for Computational Imaging & Personalized Diagnostics. Central to the mission of the core is standardization of diagnoses through teaching and cross center engagement. This will include cross visits by Drs Willis and Lukande. The core will also engage in important technology transfer of the technique of immunohistochemistry to both main sites in Africa. Immunohistochemistry is fundamental to modern diagnostic pathology and a pillar of diagnostic accuracy especially in oncology. Techniques to be introduced are designed to be used in low / middle resource centers and are flexible so that incremental additions to immunohistochemical panels can be performed with only minimal expenditures. The primary objective of the Core is to provide a resource that contributes significantly to the translational goals and endpoints of the individual projects, to facilitate cooperation between the three sites and to identify areas of potential further expansion of oncology?related translational research.
? Path Core The Pathology Core supports the goals of this U54 proposal, by provision of high quality diagnoses enabling enrollment of patients into each of the projects of this proposal. The Pathology Core provides abilities to digitalize images of tissues obtained from patients in Uganda and Tanzania suspected of having lung adenocarcinoma ? a lesion universally recognized as being under reported in East Africa. The Core will also engage in teaching and technology transfer to sites in East Africa ? since deficiencies in pathology services are regarded as one of the most pressing problems to improvement of the delivery of health care in Africa.
